History

1972–1985: The founding of Microsoft

Paul Allen and
Bill Gates pose for the camera on October 19, 1981, in a sea of PCs after signing a pivotal contract with IBM.[14]:228

Childhood friends
Paul Allen and
Bill Gates sought to make a successful
business utilizing their shared skills in
computer programming.[15] In 1972 they founded their first company, named
Traf-O-Data, which sold a rudimentary computer to track and analyze automobile traffic data. While Gates enrolled at Harvard, Allen pursued a degree in computer science at Washington State University, though he later dropped out of school to work at
Honeywell.[16] The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics featured
Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems's (MITS)
Altair 8800microcomputer,[17] which inspired Allen to suggest that they could program a
BASICinterpreter for the device. After a call from Gates claiming to have a working interpreter, MITS requested a demonstration. Since they didn't yet have one, Allen worked on a
simulator for the Altair while Gates developed the interpreter. Although they developed the interpreter on a simulator and not the actual device, it worked flawlessly when they (in March 1975) demonstrated the interpreter to MITS in
Albuquerque, New Mexico. MITS agreed to distribute it, marketing it as
Altair BASIC.[14]:108, 112–114 Gates and Allen officially established Microsoft on April 4, 1975, with Gates as the
CEO.[18] The original name of "Micro-Soft" was suggested by Allen.[19][20] In August 1977 the company formed an agreement with ASCII Magazine in Japan, resulting in its first international office, "
ASCII Microsoft".[21] Microsoft moved to a new home in
Bellevue, Washington in January 1979.[18]

Microsoft entered the
operating system (OS) business in 1980 with its own version of
Unix, called
Xenix.[22] However, it was
MS-DOS that solidified the company's dominance. After negotiations with
Digital Research failed,
IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft in November 1980 to provide a version of the
CP/M OS, which was set to be used in the upcoming
IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC).[23] For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called
86-DOS from
Seattle Computer Products, which it branded as MS-DOS, though IBM rebranded it to
PC DOS. Following the release of the IBM PC in August 1981, Microsoft retained ownership of MS-DOS. Since IBM had
copyrighted the IBM PC
BIOS, other companies had to
reverse engineer it in order for non-IBM hardware to run as
IBM PC compatibles, but no such restriction applied to the operating systems. Due to various factors, such as MS-DOS's available software selection, Microsoft eventually became the leading PC operating systems vendor.[24][25]:210 The company expanded into new markets with the release of the Microsoft Mouse in 1983, as well as with a publishing division named
Microsoft Press.[14]:232 Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983 after developing
Hodgkin's disease.

1985–1994: Windows and Office

Windows 1.0 was released on November 20, 1985 as the first version of the Microsoft Windows line

Timeline of Windows

Despite having begun jointly developing a new operating system,
OS/2, with IBM in August 1985,[26] Microsoft released
Microsoft Windows, a graphical extension for MS-DOS, on November 20.[14]:242–243, 246 Microsoft moved its headquarters to Redmond on February 26, 1986, and on March 13 went
public,[27] with the resulting rise in stock making an estimated four billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees.[28] Microsoft released its version of OS/2 to
original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) on April 2, 1987.[14] In 1990, due to the partnership with IBM, the
Federal Trade Commission set its eye on Microsoft for possible
collusion, marking the beginning of over a decade of legal clashes with the U.S. government.[29]:243–244 Meanwhile, the company was at work on a
32-bit OS,
Microsoft Windows NT, which was heavily based on their copy of the OS/2 code. It shipped on July 21, 1993, with a new
modularkernel and the
Win32application programming interface (API), making
porting from
16-bit (MS-DOS-based) Windows easier. Once Microsoft informed IBM of NT, the OS/2 partnership deteriorated.[30]

On July 27, 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division filed a Competitive Impact Statement that said, in part: "Beginning in 1988, and continuing until July 15, 1994, Microsoft induced many OEMs to execute anti-competitive "per processor" licenses. Under a per processor license, an OEM pays Microsoft a royalty for each computer it sells containing a particular microprocessor, whether the OEM sells the computer with a Microsoft operating system or a non-Microsoft operating system. In effect, the royalty payment to Microsoft when no Microsoft product is being used acts as a penalty, or tax, on the OEM's use of a competing PC operating system. Since 1988, Microsoft's use of per processor licenses has increased."[34]

1995–2007: Foray into the Web, Windows 95, Windows XP, and Xbox

Microsoft released the first installment in the
Xbox series of consoles in 2001. The
Xbox, graphically powerful compared to its rivals, featured a standard PC's 733 MHz Intel Pentium III processor.

Following Bill Gates's internal "Internet Tidal Wave memo" on May 26, 1995, Microsoft began to redefine its offerings and expand its product line into
computer networking and the
World Wide Web.[35] The company released
Windows 95 on August 24, 1995, featuring
pre-emptive multitasking, a completely new user interface with a novel
start button, and 32-bit compatibility; similar to NT, it provided the Win32 API.[36][37]:20 Windows 95 came bundled with the
online serviceMSN (which was at first intended to be a competitor to the Internet), and (for OEMs)
Internet Explorer, a
web browser. Internet Explorer was not bundled with the retail Windows 95 boxes because the boxes were printed before the team finished the web browser, and instead was included in the Windows 95 Plus! pack.[38] Branching out into new markets in 1996, Microsoft and
General Electric's
NBC unit created a new
24/7 cable news channel,
MSNBC.[39] Microsoft created
Windows CE 1.0, a new OS designed for devices with low memory and other constraints, such as
personal digital assistants.[40] In October 1997, the Justice Department filed a motion in the Federal
District Court, stating that Microsoft violated an agreement signed in 1994 and asked the court to stop the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.[14]:323–324

In 1996, Microsoft released Windows CE, a version of the operating system meant for personal digital assistants and other tiny computers.

On January 13, 2000, Bill Gates handed over the CEO position to
Steve Ballmer, an old college friend of Gates and employee of the company since 1980, while creating a new position for himself as Chief
Software Architect.[14]:111, 228[18] Various companies including Microsoft formed the
Trusted Computing Platform Alliance in October 1999 to (among other things) increase security and protect
intellectual property through identifying changes in hardware and software. Critics decried the alliance as a way to enforce indiscriminate restrictions over how consumers use software, and over how computers behave, and as a form of
digital rights management: for example the scenario where a computer is not only secured for its owner, but also secured against its owner as well.[41][42] On April 3, 2000, a judgment was handed down in the case of United States v. Microsoft,[43] calling the company an "abusive monopoly."[44] Microsoft later settled with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2004.[27] On October 25, 2001, Microsoft released
Windows XP, unifying the mainstream and NT lines of OS under the NT codebase.[45] The company released the
Xbox later that year, entering the
game console market dominated by
Sony and
Nintendo.[46] In March 2004 the
European Union brought
antitrust legal action against the company, citing it abused its dominance with the Windows OS, resulting in a judgment of €497million ($613million) and requiring Microsoft to produce new versions of Windows XP without
Windows Media Player: Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N.[47][48] In November 2005, the
Xbox 360 was released.

CEO
Steve Ballmer at the
MIX event in 2008. In an interview about his management style in 2005, he mentioned that his first priority was to get the people he
delegates to in order. Ballmer also emphasized the need to continue pursuing new technologies even if initial attempts fail, citing the original attempts with Windows as an example.[49]

Released in January 2007, the next version of Windows,
Vista, focused on features, security and a redesigned user interface dubbed
Aero.[50][51]Microsoft Office 2007, released at the same time, featured a "
Ribbon" user interface which was a significant departure from its predecessors. Relatively strong sales of both products helped to produce a record profit in 2007.[52] The European Union imposed another fine of €899million ($1.4billion) for Microsoft's lack of compliance with the March 2004 judgment on February 27, 2008, saying that the company charged rivals unreasonable prices for key information about its
workgroup and
backoffice servers. Microsoft stated that it was in compliance and that "these fines are about the past issues that have been resolved".[53] 2007 also saw the creation of a multi-core unit at Microsoft, following the steps of server companies such as Sun and IBM.[54]

Gates retired from his role as Chief Software Architect on June 27, 2008, a decision announced in June 2006, while retaining other positions related to the company in addition to being an advisor for the company on key projects.[55][56]Azure Services Platform, the company's entry into the
cloud computing market for Windows, launched on October 27, 2008.[57] On February 12, 2009, Microsoft announced its intent to open a chain of Microsoft-branded retail stores, and on October 22, 2009 the first retail
Microsoft Store opened in
Scottsdale, Arizona; the same day
Windows 7 was officially released to the public. Windows 7's focus was on refining Vista with ease of use features and performance enhancements, rather than a large reworking of Windows.[58][59][60]

As the smartphone industry boomed in 2007, Microsoft had struggled to keep up with its rivals
Apple and
Google in providing a modern smartphone operating system. As a result, in 2010 Microsoft revamped their aging flagship mobile operating system,
Windows Mobile, replacing it with the new
Windows Phone OS. Microsoft implemented a new strategy for the software industry that had them working more closely with smartphone manufacturers, such as
Nokia, and providing a consistent user experience across all smartphones using the Windows Phone OS. It used a new user interface design language, codenamed "Metro", which prominently used simple shapes, typography and iconography, utilizing the concept of minimalism. Microsoft is a founding member of the
Open Networking Foundation started on March 23, 2011. Fellow founders were
Google,
HP Networking,
Yahoo,
Verizon,
Deutsche Telekom and 17 other companies. This nonprofit organization is focused on providing support for a new
cloud computing initiative called Software-Defined Networking.[61] The initiative is meant to speed innovation through simple software changes in telecommunications networks, wireless networks, data centers and other networking areas.[62]

2011–2014: Windows 8/8.1, Xbox One, Outlook.com, and Surface devices

Following the release of
Windows Phone, Microsoft undertook a gradual
rebranding of its product range throughout 2011 and 2012, with the corporation's logos, products, services and websites adopting the principles and concepts of the
Metro design language.[63] Microsoft unveiled
Windows 8, an operating system designed to power both personal computers and
tablet computers, in Taipei in June 2011.[64] A developer preview was released on September 13, which was subsequently replaced by a consumer preview on February 29, 2012 and released to the public in May.[65] The
Surface was unveiled on June 18, becoming the first computer in the company's history to have its hardware made by Microsoft.[66][67] On June 25, Microsoft paid US$1.2 billion to buy the social network
Yammer.[68] On July 31, they launched the
Outlook.comwebmail service to compete with
Gmail.[69] On September 4, 2012, Microsoft released
Windows Server 2012.[70]

In July 2012, Microsoft sold its 50% stake in
MSNBC.com, which it had run as a joint venture with NBC since 1996.[71] On October 1, Microsoft announced its intention to launch a news operation, part of a new-look
MSN, with Windows 8 later in the month.[72] On October 26, 2012, Microsoft launched Windows 8 and the
Microsoft Surface.[67][73] Three days later,
Windows Phone 8 was launched.[74] To cope with the potential for an increase in demand for products and services, Microsoft opened a number of "holiday stores" across the U.S. to complement the increasing number of "bricks-and-mortar" Microsoft Stores that opened in 2012.[75] On March 29, 2013, Microsoft launched a Patent Tracker.[76]

The
Kinect, a motion-sensing input device made by Microsoft and designed as a
video game controller, first introduced in November 2010, was upgraded for the 2013 release of the
Xbox One video game console. Kinect's capabilities were revealed in May 2013: an ultra-wide 1080p camera, function in the dark due to an infrared sensor, higher-end processing power and new software, the ability to distinguish between fine movements (such as a thumb movements), and determining a user's heart rate by looking at their face.[77] Microsoft filed a patent application in 2011 that suggests that the corporation may use the Kinect camera system to monitor the behavior of television viewers as part of a plan to make the viewing experience more interactive. On July 19, 2013, Microsoft stocks suffered its biggest one-day percentage sell-off since the year 2000, after its fourth-quarter report raised concerns among the investors on the poor showings of both Windows 8 and the Surface tablet. Microsoft suffered a loss of more than US$32 billion.[78]

On September 3, 2013, Microsoft agreed to buy
Nokia's mobile unit for $7 billion,[79] following
Amy Hood taking the role of CFO.[80] The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), a coalition of public and private organizations that also included
Facebook,
Intel and
Google, was launched in October. Led by
World Wide Web inventor
Tim Berners-Lee, the A4AI seeks to make Internet access more affordable so that access is broadened in the developing world, where only 31% of people were online. Google planned to help to decrease Internet access prices so that they fall below the UN Broadband Commission's worldwide target of 5% of monthly income.[81] In line with the maturing PC business, in July 2013, Microsoft announced that it would reorganize the business into four new business divisions: Operating System, Apps, Cloud, and Devices. All previous divisions will be diluted into new divisions without any workforce cut.[82]

John W. Thompson has been appointed the chairman of Microsoft, taking over from Bill Gates.

Corporate affairs

On February 4, 2014,
Steve Ballmer stepped down as
CEO of Microsoft and was succeeded by
Satya Nadella, who previously led Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise division.[83] On the same day,
John W. Thompson took on the role of chairman, in place of Bill Gates, who continues to participate as a technology advisor.[84]

On April 25, 2014, Microsoft acquired Nokia Devices and Services for $7.2 billion.[85] This new subsidiary was renamed Microsoft Mobile Oy.[86] In May 2016, the company announced its laying off 1,850 workers, taking an impairment and restructuring charge of $950 million. During the previous summer of 2015 the company lost $7.6 billion related to its mobile-phone business, firing 7,800 employees.[87]

On September 15, 2014, Microsoft acquired the video game development company
Mojang, best known for Minecraft, for $2.5 billion.[88] On June 8, 2017, Microsoft acquired
Hexadite, an Israeli security firm, for $100 million.[89][90]

In Q1 2015, Microsoft was the third largest maker of mobile phones, selling 33 million units (7.2% of all). While a large majority (at least 75%) of them do not run any version of
Windows Phone – those other phones are not categorized as
smartphones by Gartner – in the same time frame 8 million Windows smartphones (2.5% of all smartphones) were made by all manufacturers (but mostly by Microsoft).[93] Microsoft's share of the U.S. smartphone market in January 2016 was 2.7%.[94]

On March 1, 2016, Microsoft announced the merger of its PC and Xbox divisions, with Phil Spencer announcing that Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps would be the focus for Microsoft's gaming in the future.[95] On January 24, 2017, Microsoft showcased Intune for Education at the
BETT 2017 education technology conference in
London.[96] Intune for Education is a new cloud-based application and device management service for the education sector.[97] Microsoft planned to launch a preview of Intune for Education "in the coming weeks", with general availability scheduled for spring 2017, priced at $30 per device, or through volume licensing agreements.[98]

Services

In June 2016, Microsoft announced a project named Microsoft Azure Information Protection. It aims to help enterprises protect their data as it moves between servers and devices.[99] In November 2016, Microsoft joined the
Linux Foundation as a Platinum member during Microsoft’s Connect(); developer event in New York.[100] The cost of each Platinum membership is US$500,000 per year.[101] Some analysts deemed this unthinkable ten years prior, however, as in 2001 then-CEO Steve Ballmer called Linux "cancer".[102]

Office Product division

This group produces various products of Microsoft Office family. It includes
Microsoft Office, an
office suite for Windows PCs and Macs,
Office Mobile, a line of apps for smartphones and tablets and Office Online, a combination of Microsoft Office Web Apps (an online version of Microsoft Office's core apps) and various formerly
Windows Live branded web services all connected via
Microsoft accounts. It also designs
Skype, an application that specializes in providing video chat and voice call services.

AI and Research division

AI and Research division is responsible for development of
Bing, a
web search engine (advertised as a "
decision engine"[103]) from Microsoft.
Microsoft Research was created with the intent to advance state of the art computing and solve difficult world problems through technological innovation in collaboration with academic, government, and industry researchers.

Future Decoded

Future Decoded is a
business networking event held every year by Microsoft that allows business partners of the company to share their views on what the future holds for business, society, leadership and technology.

Corporate affairs

Board of Directors

The company is run by a
board of directors made up of mostly company outsiders, as is customary for publicly traded companies. Members of the board of directors as of January 2016 are
John W. Thompson,
Bill Gates, Teri L. List-Stoll,
Mason Morfit,
Satya Nadella,
Charles Noski,
Helmut Panke,
Sandi Peterson,
Charles W. Scharf,
John W. Stanton, and
Padmasree Warrior.[104] Board members are elected every year at the annual shareholders' meeting using a majority vote system. There are five committees within the board which oversee more specific matters. These committees include the Audit Committee, which handles accounting issues with the company including auditing and reporting; the Compensation Committee, which approves compensation for the CEO and other employees of the company; the Finance Committee, which handles financial matters such as proposing mergers and acquisitions; the Governance and Nominating Committee, which handles various corporate matters including nomination of the board; and the Antitrust Compliance Committee, which attempts to prevent company practices from violating
antitrust laws.[105]

Financial

When Microsoft went public and launched its
initial public offering (IPO) in 1986, the opening
stock price was $21; after the
trading day, the price closed at $27.75. As of July 2010, with the company's nine
stock splits, any IPO
shares would be multiplied by 288; if one were to buy the IPO today given the splits and other factors, it would cost about 9cents.[14]:235–236[107][108] The stock price peaked in 1999 at around $119 ($60.928 adjusting for splits).[109] The company began to offer a
dividend on January 16, 2003, starting at eight cents per share for the fiscal year followed by a dividend of sixteen cents per share the subsequent year, switching from yearly to quarterly dividends in 2005 with eight cents a share per quarter and a
special one-time payout of three dollars per share for the second quarter of the fiscal year.[109][110] Though the company had subsequent increases in dividend payouts, the price of Microsoft's stock remained steady for years.[110][111]

Standard and Poor's and
Moody's have both given a AAA rating to Microsoft, whose assets were valued at $41 billion as compared to only $8.5 billion in unsecured debt. Consequently, in February 2011 Microsoft released a corporate bond amounting to $2.25 billion with relatively low borrowing rates compared to
government bonds.[112] For the first time in 20 years
Apple Inc. surpassed Microsoft in Q1 2011 quarterly profits and revenues due to a slowdown in PC sales and continuing huge losses in Microsoft's Online Services Division (which contains its search engine
Bing). Microsoft profits were $5.2 billion, while Apple Inc. profits were $6 billion, on revenues of $14.5 billion and $24.7 billion respectively.[113] Microsoft's Online Services Division has been continuously loss-making since 2006 and in Q1 2011 it lost $726 million. This follows a loss of $2.5 billion for the year 2010.[114]

On July 20, 2012, Microsoft posted its first quarterly loss ever, despite earning record revenues for the quarter and fiscal year, with a net loss of $492 million due to a
writedown related to the advertising company
aQuantive, which had been acquired for $6.2 billion back in 2007.[115] As of January 2014, Microsoft's market capitalization stood at $314B,[116] making it the 8th largest company in the world by market capitalization.[117] On November 14, 2014, Microsoft overtook Exxon Mobil to become the 2nd most valuable company by market capitalization, behind only
Apple Inc. Its total market value was over $410B — with the stock price hitting $50.04 a share, the highest since early 2000.[118] In 2015,
Reuters reported that Microsoft Corp had earnings abroad of $76.4 billion which were untaxed by the
IRS. Under U.S. law corporations don't pay income tax on overseas profits until the profits are brought into the United States.[119]

Marketing

Windows 8 Launch Event in Akihabara, Tokyo on October 25, 2012

In 2004, Microsoft commissioned research firms to do independent studies comparing the
total cost of ownership (TCO) of
Windows Server 2003 to
Linux; the firms concluded that companies found Windows easier to administrate than Linux, thus those using Windows would administrate faster resulting in lower costs for their company (i.e. lower TCO).[120] This spurred a wave of related studies; a study by the
Yankee Group concluded that upgrading from one version of Windows Server to another costs a fraction of the
switching costs from Windows Server to Linux, although companies surveyed noted the increased security and reliability of Linux servers and concern about being locked into using Microsoft products.[121] Another study, released by the
Open Source Development Labs, claimed that the Microsoft studies were "simply outdated and one-sided" and their survey concluded that the TCO of Linux was lower due to Linux administrators managing more servers on average and other reasons.[122]

As part of the "Get the Facts" campaign, Microsoft highlighted the
.NET trading platform that it had developed in partnership with
Accenture for the
London Stock Exchange, claiming that it provided "
five nines" reliability. After suffering extended downtime and unreliability[123][124] the LSE announced in 2009 that it was planning to drop its Microsoft solution and switch to a Linux-based one in 2010.[125][126]

In 2012, Microsoft hired a political pollster named Mark Penn, whom the New York Times called "famous for bulldozing" his political opponents[127] as Executive Vice-President, Advertising and Strategy. Penn created a series of negative ads targeting one of Microsoft's chief competitors,
Google. The ads, called "
Scroogled", attempt to make the case that Google is "screwing" consumers with search results rigged to favor Google's paid advertisers, that
Gmail violates the privacy of its users to place ad results related to the content of their emails and shopping results which favor Google products. Tech publications like TechCrunch have been highly critical of the ad campaign,[128] while Google employees have embraced it.[129]

Layoffs

In July 2014, Microsoft announced plans to lay off 18,000 employees. Microsoft employed 127,104 people as of June 5, 2014, making this about a 14 percent reduction of its workforce as the biggest Microsoft lay off ever. This included 12,500 professional and factory personnel. Previously, Microsoft has laid off 5,800 jobs in 2009 in line with
US financial crisis.[130][131] In September 2014, Microsoft laid off 2,100 people, including 747 people in the Seattle-Redmond area, where the company is headquartered. The firings came as a second wave of the layoffs that were previously announced. This brings the total number to over 15,000 out of the 18,000 expected cuts.[132] In October 2014, Microsoft revealed that it was almost done with the elimination of 18,000 employees which was its largest ever layoff sweep.[133] In July 2015, Microsoft announced another 7,800 job cuts in the next several months.[134] In May 2016, Microsoft announced another 1,850 job cuts mostly in (Nokia) mobile phone division. As a result, the company will record an impairment and restructuring charge of approximately $950 million, of which approximately $200 million will relate to severance payments.[135]

United States government

Microsoft provides information about reported bugs in their software to intelligence agencies of the United States government, prior to the public release of the fix. A Microsoft spokesperson has stated that the corporation runs several programs that facilitate the sharing of such information with the U.S. government.[136] Following media reports about
PRISM, NSA's massive electronic
surveillance program, in May 2013, several technology companies were identified as participants, including Microsoft.[137] According to leaks of said program, Microsoft joined the PRISM program in 2007.[138] However, in June 2013, an official statement from Microsoft flatly denied their participation in the program:

We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data, we don't participate in it.[139]

During the first six months in 2013, Microsoft had received requests that affected between 15,000 and 15,999 accounts.[140] In December 2013, the company made statement to further emphasize the fact that they take their customers' privacy and data protection very seriously, even saying that "government snooping potentially now constitutes an "
advanced persistent threat," alongside sophisticated malware and cyber attacks".[141] The statement also marked the beginning of three-part program to enhance Microsoft's encryption and transparency efforts. On July 1, 2014, as part of this program they opened the first (of many) Microsoft Transparency Center, that provides "participating governments with the ability to review
source code for our key products, assure themselves of their software integrity, and confirm there are no "
back doors."[142] Microsoft has also argued that the
United States Congress should enact strong privacy regulations to protect consumer data.[143] In 2016, the company
sued the U.S., arguing that secrecy orders were preventing the company from disclosing warrants to customers in violation of the company's and customers' rights.

Corporate identity

Corporate culture

The Commons, located on the campus of the company's headquarters in Redmond

Building 92, home of the Microsoft Visitor Center

Technical reference for developers and articles for various Microsoft magazines such as Microsoft Systems Journal (MSJ) are available through the
Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN). MSDN also offers subscriptions for companies and individuals, and the more expensive subscriptions usually offer access to pre-release beta versions of Microsoft software.[144][145] In April 2004 Microsoft launched a community site for developers and users, titled
Channel 9, that provides a
wiki and an
Internet forum.[146] Another community site that provides daily
videocasts and other services, On10.net, launched on March 3, 2006.[147] Free technical support is traditionally provided through online
Usenet newsgroups, and
CompuServe in the past, monitored by Microsoft employees; there can be several newsgroups for a single product. Helpful people can be elected by peers or Microsoft employees for
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) status, which entitles them to a sort of special social status and possibilities for awards and other benefits.[148]

Noted for its internal
lexicon, the expression
"eating our own dog food" is used to describe the policy of using pre-release and beta versions of products inside Microsoft in an effort to test them in "real-world" situations.[149] This is usually shortened to just "dog food" and is used as noun, verb, and adjective. Another bit of
jargon,
FYIFV or FYIV ("Fuck You, I'm [Fully] Vested"), is used by an employee to indicate they are
financially independent and can avoid work anytime they wish.[150] The company is also known for its hiring process, mimicked in other organizations and dubbed the "
Microsoft interview", which is notorious for off-the-wall questions such as "Why is a
manhole cover round?".[151]

Microsoft is an outspoken opponent of the cap on
H1B visas, which allow companies in the U.S. to employ certain foreign workers. Bill Gates claims the cap on H1B visas makes it difficult to hire employees for the company, stating "I'd certainly get rid of the H1B cap" in 2005.[152] Critics of H1B visas argue that relaxing the limits would result in increased unemployment for U.S. citizens due to H1B workers working for lower salaries.[153] The
Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, a report of how progressive the organization deems company policies towards
LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) employees, rated Microsoft as 87% from 2002 to 2004 and as 100% from 2005 to 2010 after they allowed gender expression.[154]

Environment

In 2011,
Greenpeace released a report rating the top ten big brands in
cloud computing on their sources of electricity for their
data centers. At the time, data centers consumed up to 2% of all global electricity and this amount was projected to increase.
Phil Radford of Greenpeace said "we are concerned that this new explosion in electricity use could lock us into old, polluting energy sources instead of the clean energy available today,"[155] and called on "Amazon, Microsoft and other leaders of the information-technology industry must embrace clean energy to power their cloud-based data centers."[156] In 2013, Microsoft agreed to buy power generated by a Texas wind project to power one of its data centers.[157] Microsoft is ranked on the 17th place in
Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics (16th Edition) that ranks 18 electronics manufacturers according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and
climate change.[158] Microsoft's timeline for phasing out
brominated flame retardant (BFRs) and
phthalates in all products is 2012 but its commitment to phasing out
PVC is not clear. As of January 2011, it has no products that are completely free from PVC and BFRs.[159]

Microsoft's main U.S. campus received a silver certification from the
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program in 2008, and it installed over 2,000
solar panels on top of its buildings in its
Silicon Valley campus, generating approximately 15 percent of the total energy needed by the facilities in April 2005.[160] Microsoft makes use of alternative forms of transit. It created one of the world's largest private bus systems, the "Connector", to transport people from outside the company; for on-campus transportation, the "Shuttle Connect" uses a large fleet of hybrid cars to save fuel. The company also subsidises regional
public transport, provided by
Sound Transit and
King County Metro, as an incentive.[160][161] In February 2010 however, Microsoft took a stance against adding additional public transport and
high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to the
State Route 520 and
its floating bridge connecting Redmond to Seattle; the company did not want to delay the construction any further.[162] Microsoft was ranked number 1 in the list of the World's Best Multinational Workplaces by the Great Place to Work Institute in 2011.[163]

Headquarters

The corporate headquarters, informally known as the
Microsoft Redmond campus, is located at
One Microsoft Way in Redmond, Washington. Microsoft initially moved onto the grounds of the campus on February 26, 1986, weeks before the company went public on March 13. The headquarters has since experienced multiple expansions since its establishment. It is estimated to encompass over 8 million ft2 (750,000 m2) of office space and 30,000–40,000 employees.[164] Additional offices are located in
Bellevue and
Issaquah (90,000 employees worldwide). The company is planning to upgrade its Mountain View, California campus on a grand scale. The company has occupied this campus since 1981. The company is planning to buy the 32-acre campus.[165] The plans submitted involve expanding the campus by 25%. It is expected that it will take three years to complete the expansion. If approved, construction will start in early 2017.[165] Microsoft operates an East Coast headquarters in
Charlotte, North Carolina.[166]

Flagship stores

On October 26, 2015, the company opened its flagship retail location on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The location features a five-story glass storefront and is 22,270 square feet.[167] As per company executives, Microsoft had been on the lookout for a flagship location since 2009.[168] The company's retail locations are part of a greater strategy to help build a connection with its consumers. The opening of the store coincided with the launch of the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4.[169] Notably, the second floor has a large area designated for consumers to play Xbox games. The third floor has been named the "Dell Experience at the Microsoft Store," which showcases various Dell products. The fourth floor is for employees and administrative operations. The fifth floor has been designed as a pseudo-conference center, as it will hold events and meetings.[168] On November 12, 2015, Microsoft opened a second flagship store, located in Sydney's Pitt Street Mall.[170] The two-storey, 6000 sq ft location features Microsoft's flagship products including the Surface line and Xbox One, there is also an Answer Desk on site for customers to get product support.[171]

Logo

Microsoft adopted the so-called "Pac-Man Logo", designed by Scott Baker, in 1987. Baker stated "The new logo, in
Helvetica italic typeface, has a slash between the o and s to emphasize the "soft" part of the name and convey motion and speed."[172] Dave Norris ran an internal joke campaign to save the old logo, which was green, in all uppercase, and featured a fanciful letter O, nicknamed the blibbet, but it was discarded.[173] Microsoft's logo with the tagline "Your potential. Our passion." – below the main corporate name – is based on a slogan Microsoft used in 2008. In 2002, the company started using the logo in the United States and eventually started a television campaign with the slogan, changed from the previous tagline of "
Where do you want to go today?"[174][175][176] During the private MGX (Microsoft Global Exchange) conference in 2010, Microsoft unveiled the company's next tagline, "Be What's Next."[177] They also had a slogan/tagline "Making it all make sense."[178]

On August 23, 2012, Microsoft unveiled a new corporate logo at the opening of its 23rd Microsoft store in Boston, indicating the company's shift of focus from the classic style to the tile-centric modern interface, which it uses/will use on the Windows Phone platform, Xbox 360, Windows 8 and the upcoming Office Suites.[179] The new logo also includes four squares with the colors of the then-current Windows logo which have been used to represent Microsoft's four major products: Windows (blue), Office (red), Xbox (green) and Bing (yellow).[180] The logo resembles the opening of one of the commercials for
Windows 95.[181][182]

1975–1980

1980–1982

1982–1987

1987–2012

2012–present

1975–1980: First Microsoft logo, in 1975

1980–1982: Second Microsoft logo, in 1980

1982–1987: Third Microsoft logo, in 1982

1987–2012: Microsoft "
Pac-Man" logo, designed by Scott Baker and used from 1987 to 2012[174][175]